Sitting down on the top of the workbench, I watched her head to one of the shelves with supplies. Raikidan pulled off his shirt and tossed it on me.
Grunting, I balled it up and tossed it back at him. “Ass.”
He grinned with a chuckle and tossed his shirt onto the workbench.
“Reaching over you,” Rylan informed Ryoko as he walked over to her.
“O–o–okay,” she stuttered as he pressed his shirtless, walking-work-accident self against her and reached for a tool chest above her.
I bit my lip and pressed my fist against my mouth in order to suppress a laugh. I could see the gleam in the corner of his eye. He was doing this on purpose. This whole time, I figured he wasn’t coming on strong to her. I had been so wrong.
Ryoko gulped and tried her best to focus on finding the tools she needed. I shouldn’t have found her situation funny, but I did, and I had no regrets.
“That’s quite the scar on Rylan’s back,” Raikidan said. “How’d he get it?”
My body moved, and my vision faded in and out, as did all my other senses. People screamed. Blood splattered. Bodies fell.
I didn’t answer him. I had been doing my best not to think about that scar, but now that he had mentioned it, it was hard not to. The scar went from Rylan’s right shoulder blade down to his left hip, and you could tell the wound had been deep. Looking at it brought back that painful memory.
Rylan ran through an open door and came right toward me. My vision faded in and out.
“Eira?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I couldn’t take control. My vision faded and then came back just as I was slicing him across the back with a dagger.
“Eira, Are you okay?”
“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” I repeated as I stood up.
Raikidan grabbed my wrist and forced me to face him. “Eira, what’s wrong?”
His body lay on the ground, unmoving, and bleeding out. My vision faded in and out. What had I done?
I looked him in the eye. “He got that because of me.”
His brow rose. “You gave him that?”
I pulled my arm from his grasp and looked elsewhere. “I told you—I’m a monster.”
“Eira—”
“Hey, Raikidan,” Rylan called over to him as he finally pulled the tool chest from the shelving. “Come with me. I’ll need you to grab the new engine for that car the three of you are working on. We’ll find out if you can handle the weight.”
Raikidan chuckled at his challenge and followed. Sighing with relief, I walked over to Ryoko. I was safe from his questions for a little while.
“You shouldn’t call yourself that,” Ryoko said.
“I’m not going to talk about this. What do you need help finding?”
She placed her hands on her hips and faced me. “Well, I do want to talk about it.”
“And I don’t, so drop it.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I snorted and grabbed a gas line.
“Laz, seriously. Why do you blame yourself for it?”
“Why?” I threw the line back into the shelf and rounded on her. “Because I lost control, that’s why! I should have been able to stop myself from attacking him, but I couldn’t. He almost died because of me. It was my fault!”
Ryoko took a step back and gazed at me with sympathetic eyes. “Laz…”
I didn’t want to hear it. I pushed past her in anger, snatching up a few tools in need of reshelving, and headed to the back of the shop to put them away. I took my time in hopes it’d help me calm down, but my anger remained.
I stopped when someone grabbed my shoulder. I looked back to see Zane and then went back to my task. I didn’t want to talk, but he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“Chickadee, you need to let it go,” he said.
“It’s not something that can just be forgotten.”
“I’m not saying to forget. I’m telling you to stop blaming yourself for something that was beyond your control. To stop comparing the person you once were to the person you are now.”
I sighed and looked at him. “I’m the same person, Zane.”
“I disagree.”
“Nothing has changed. I still have the same thoughts and the same bloody past, and the same dark cloud following me everywhere. I still fight the same demons. I’ve remained the same.”
“You’re wrong, Eira. You’re not the same person. I’ve seen you at your worst. I feared for your life at that time. Everyone did. We thought we had lost you.” He cupped my face with his hand. “But the darkness that lay in your eyes then is gone. In its place is a light I never thought I’d live to see in you again. Between Ryder coming into our lives… and whatever happened to you while you were away, it has changed you. I know you can move on from the past, but you have to let the past go first. You need to stop blaming yourself.”
Ryder. Zane saying his name made me wonder how he was doing. I wished there was a safe way for me to contact him, so I could find out.
Zane took the remaining tools from my hands. “Now, why don’t you go help out Argus? We both know he won’t bother you, and you’re pretty good with the projects he does.”
I sighed and nodded. Heading back to the front end of the shop, I located Argus at his work bench and sat on a stool next to him as he soldered a wire to a gun. Once he was done, he sat up and lifted his face mask.
While tilting his head, he grinned and handed me the soldering tool as he rested his elbows on the workbench. “I could use the extra help.”
“I could use something to distract me,” I replied as I took the tool.
He chuckled. “I can tell. Just make sure you solder the wire and not my fingers in your anger.”
I laughed. “Won’t promise anything.”
I pulled down my goggles and went to work. It wasn’t long before we were interrupted. I did my best to keep my attention on the soldering gun. I honestly didn’t want to get Argus’ fingers, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the customers Zane was now greeting, at least not until a familiar laugh rang through my ears.
“Zo is here,” Argus muttered.
“I noticed.”
He snickered. “And here I thought you were his number one fan.”
I snorted. “Please. All he does when he’s here is bother us.”
“You mean bother you.”
I sighed and he snickered. “It’s not funny. I was hoping it was Ryoko being… well… Ryoko.”
“It’s not a bad thing.”
I stopped soldering and looked at him.
“There are benefits to being in the good graces of a ranked officer. We could potentially use his interest to our advantage at some point.”
“I suppose…”
“Eira, I know it’s non—”
I wasn’t going to find out what he wanted to say. Zane strolled over to us with Zo and three other soldiers. Argus and I sat up as they approached.
“I told Zo his weapon still wasn’t ready, but he insisted on looking at it anyway,” Zane explained.
Argus gestured to the unfinished gun. “What you see is what you get.”
Playing on my supposed innocence, I giggled at Argus’ words. Argus lifted up his mask and grinned at me. The exchange attracted Zo’s attention.
“I’m still surprised it’s taken you this long,” Zo said.
“Well, you want me to change a rail gun to a plasma gun, which still hasn’t been perfected on its own, and on top of that, you want several other modifications,” Argus replied. “It’s also mostly just me working on this.”
Zo crossed his arm. “You shouldn’t take Eira’s help for granted.”
Zane laughed. “Eira doesn’t help him much, only when she’s angry at everyone else and doesn’t wish to work on the car she’s assigned. Isn’t that right, Chickadee?”
I lifted my goggles and smiled in response.
Zo chuckled. “You don’t come off as
the angry type, Sweetcheeks.”
I forced myself to continue to smile instead of retch at the name he’d started using since my third “official” day working here. I opened my mouth to reply, but the sound of someone walking up behind me pulled my attention. Turning, I leaned back and grinned at Raikidan. He responded with his signature cocky grin as he carried a large car engine on one shoulder. Obviously, he had proved to Rylan he could do it, which would be a major feat for the nu-human he was supposed to be pretending to be.
“C’mon, Butterfly, I need your help. I’m giving this over to Ryoko and then I have a list of parts we need to go grab for her little project.”
I narrowed my eyes and stood up. “I told you not to call me that.”
He continued to grin. “You also haven’t given me a good enough reason not to.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed him sideways and headed over to Ryoko, who now stood by a custom car.
He stumbled but caught himself with ease and caught up with me. “That wasn’t nice.”
“You didn’t give me a reason not to do it.”
Raikidan chuckled and then pushed me sideways with his elbow. Stumbling, I righted myself and pushed him for a second time. “Asshole.”
He smirked at me but refrained from any more comments.
“Don’t keep her too long,” Argus called after us. “She was actually being helpful.”
Raikidan waved him off and the two of us met up with Ryoko. Raikidan made his exchange with her and then pulled out a scrap of paper with a bunch of scribbles all over it. Raikidan just stared at it in confusion, piquing my interest.
Ryoko glanced at the paper and laughed. “Good luck reading that.”
“Let me guess, Zane wrote it?” I said.
Raikidan nodded. “I assumed it’d be legible when Rylan handed it to me, so I didn’t think to look at it beforehand.”
“I’m sure we can manage,” I said.
“Yeah, and if you have any trouble, let me know and I’ll help where I can,” Ryoko said. “I know what I need for this job anyway. I just need to focus on getting this engine lowered in before I can give you a hand.”
Raikidan nodded and then led the way to the back of the shop, where we stored all the ordered-in parts. We grabbed the largest parts first and brought them over to Ryoko, who was now being assisted by Rylan, and then went to work on the parts that needed a ladder to access. Well, Raikidan needed a ladder. I was too stubborn to use one, and just climbed up and down the shelves.
“You really should use a ladder,” Raikidan said as I made my fifth trip up. “You can carry more and it’s less dangerous.”
I reached for a few tools. “I’m fine.”
“Eira, really. You should—”
“Rai, stop wor—” I gasped when my foot slipped, but I caught myself and sighed quietly before going back to my job.
Raikidan sighed in aggravation. “See, you need to be more careful! You could have fallen.”
I snorted as I grabbed the last tool I needed and began climbing down. “I’m far more skilled than that.”
When I was only a few feet off the ground, I decided to jump down to save time. I turned and let go of the metal shelves, only to run into Raikidan as I landed. My heart stopped as he caught me and rested his hands on my back. The shop slipped away as we stared at each other, and the longer we remained this way, the more I noticed that strange feeling trying to surface in my body again.
Suddenly, my senses came back, and I snapped myself out of the bizarre trance. I pushed Raikidan away. “You need to watch where you stand. I could have landed on you.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said slowly.
I shook my head and headed for Ryoko and Rylan’s location, only to nearly run into her as we both decided to round the same corner.
“Oops, sorry,” she said.
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. No harm done. Whatcha need, these tools?”
She shook her head. “No, I was going to come grab Raikidan, so he could help me fetch lunch.”
I skirted around her. “Oh, well he’s all yours.”
“C’mon, Rai, let’s go,” she said.
“Whoa, wha—”
I set the tools down on the work bench and watched as Ryoko dragged Raikidan out of the shop by the wrist. He started laughing when she didn’t let up, even after asking her to, and a strange feeling bubbled in my chest. It was different than the one I had felt moments ago. It was fairly negative and a bit possessive, and I had experienced it before, but a long, long time ago. Jealousy? That didn’t make sense. I couldn’t possibly see a reason for that emotion to surface.
“Where are those two going?” Rylan asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I shrugged. “She said something about getting lunch and needed Raikidan’s help. I’m actually surprised she didn’t ask you.”
He nodded and looked toward the door they had left open. “She always asks me first, and it wasn’t like I was busy doing anything.”
The bond flared up in the back of my head and I eyed him. That’s what she’s up to. When she opted to go on a mission with Raikidan the other day instead of me, I knew she was up to something. It made sense for her to want to get to know Raikidan, especially after I finally got him to spar with her. But I knew something else was up, especially when the bond started tugging at my mind as Rylan watched them head upstairs. It had flared up a few times before that when she wouldn’t stop talking about Raikidan. “Disappointed? Or maybe you’re jealous?”
He grunted. “No, just confused.”
“Right.”
He nudged me. “And what about you? The bond was acting up for a little while.”
“Tch, this is me we’re talking about. I couldn’t care less.”
“Yeah, sure.”
We both looked behind us when someone approached. It was Zane, and he was deactivating his communicator. I then realized Zo and his goons were gone.
“What’s up, Zane?” I asked.
“Genesis needs you to go do something,” he said. “You and Raikidan, but Ryoko ran out before I could stop them.”
“I’m sure she has her communicator on her,” Rylan said. “I’ll give her a call.”
Zane nodded and then looked at me. “You’d best get home quick, so you can find out what she wants. She wouldn’t say on the line.”
I nodded and headed for the door. It wasn’t a surprise Genesis wouldn’t reveal anything over the line. With us being in a public area, she wouldn’t want to risk the wrong person overhearing somehow. It was best if I just headed home quickly to hear her out myself.
Sweltering heat clung to me as I walked; the low, late afternoon sun did nothing to quell the unusual oppressive spring weather. My brow furrowed as I looked around. The assignment Genesis had given me when I arrived back at the house was simple. Pretend to get lost, and accidentally make my way into a restricted area to teach Raikidan where the boundaries were and how to handle soldiers if any were encountered, including getting information out of them without them realizing what happened. Easy and low-profile, as most missions come, but evidently, in my pretending, I had ended up really getting lost.
The sound of flapping wings echoed through the street and I looked up. A large crow perched on the top of a building and gazed down at me. There he is. I continued on. Raikidan hadn’t made it back to the house by the time my briefing was over, so Genesis assured me she’d brief him and then send him after me. I was glad she chose him for this type of mission. At least he couldn’t make fun of me for getting lost, because he would have no idea.
The sound of approaching footsteps caught my attention. I took a deep breath and started tugging on my fingers. I tightened my shoulders as I bit my lip, making myself look like some worried mess.
“Halt!” I stopped and looked up to see two armed soldiers approaching me. Shit. Neither of the soldiers wore helmets, and I recognized one. He was the soldier Raikidan and I had met when we had arrived at the city. Thinking hard, I
remembered that his name was Amon.
“This is a restricted area,” Amon said. “State your business.”
Wow, I was that lucky? What were the odds? I wrung my fingers together. “I’m lost.”
Amon snorted. “Likely story.”
The other soldier with him held up his hand. “Don’t dismiss her words so carelessly.”
“I might as well. This is a restricted area.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know this area was restricted. I really am lost,” I said. Seriously, loser, I’m that much of an idiot today.
Amon stalked up to me and grabbed my arm. “Stop lying.”
“Don’t touch her, you vile cretin!”
I flinched at his grip. “That hurts, stop!”
His grip tightened.
“Please…”
He bent close to my ear. “Tell me the truth and I’ll stop hurting you.”
“Amon, knock it off,” the other soldier warned. “You’re going too far.”
I tried to struggle away. “I’m telling the truth! Please let go of me!”
“What’s going on here?”
I stopped moving and looked up at the approaching soldier. My eyes grew wide with surprise. “General Zo…”
It was just my luck I’d run into him. I couldn’t escape this man. One glance at me, and Zo looked at Amon with confusion. “What is going on, Amon?”
“She was trespassing,” he defended.
I struggled against his grip again. “I told you, I’m lost.”
Zo looked at the other soldier, who nodded. “He hasn’t given her any time to explain beyond those words.”
Zo focused on Amon. “Let her go.”
“Sir?”
“She’s telling the truth.”
Amon hesitantly let go. I stumbled, as I was still struggling against him during the exchange, but refused to fall over, and glared at Amon as I rubbed my arm.
Zo held out his hand. “Come with me, Eira.”
Amon’s eyes widened, and I childishly stuck my tongue out at him as I made my way over to Zo. As I did, he folded his outstretched arm and had me tuck my arm around it.
“Thank you, General,” I whispered.
He grinned. “Please, just Zo.”
Destiny (Experimental Heart Book 1) Page 44